FARMINGTON — Naoko Sears had a recipe for blue ribbon success at the Rochester Fair that required between five and six dozen eggs, and yet she entered neither a giant cake nor an exhibit in the poultry barn.She had worked on her project every night, from supper to midnight, for three and a half months, and created a Japanese eggshell mosaic of arresting beauty, using a technique that she learned in grade 4 back in her native Japan. She knew it as “mosaiku” back then.Comprised of thousands of tiny, painted eggshell fragments, and measuring 40” by 27”, her Fair entry depicted a lake scene, and the judges awarded the mosaic the best of its class in the Exhibition Hall’s art department.It might be thought that Naoko, now age 65, has been creating eggshell mosaics for over 50 years, but in actuality, there has been a 50-year gap, for she only resumed her schoolroom craft earlier this year.“I go on the craft circuit but I mostly do sewing,” said Naoko, who can be found a couple of afternoons a week at the Rochester Farmer’s Market on Wakefield Street.“I wanted to do mosaiku for a long time, but I wasn’t sure there was a market. Then a Japanese friend of mine from Moultonboro made one and sold it, so I said, ‘Someone’s interested,’” Naoko said.Her technique is to take backboard or poster board and glue white paper over it, and do a rough, light sketch on the surface.At this point she has to decide which tints and shades will be in her picture, select the various acrylics, and paint all the egg shell halves that will eventually comprise the mosaic. Then she meticulously breaks off little fragments of egg shell with her fingernail and scatters them over her worktable, rather like a jigsaw. Then, tiny piece by tiny piece, she glues them to the paper. Sometimes, when the painting includes rocks or clouds, for example, Naoko will use unpainted shell fragments of brown or white or gray.Her subject matter is varied, and she often works from photographs. Her very first work, when she took up mosaiku again was The Old Man of the Mountain, and since that time she has completed other iconic works like Iwo Jima, a firefighter silhouetted against a blaze and the lighthouse at Portland Head. She has sold her works at craft fairs in Alton Bay, Wolfeboro and Hopkinton Fair, and would like to make a sale of a mosaic at the Rochester Farmer’s Market, where her sewing is the item in demand.Pam Talon who manages the Rochester Market, said of Naoko, “She is really a gifted person and is a welcome addition to the downtown market.”The market is held in the Ben Franklin Crafts parking lot on Tuesdays and Thursday from 3 to 6 p.m. through October.Naoko Sears and her husband Richard, who is retired from the U.S. Air Force, have lived in Farmington for the past 26 years. They met when he was serving in Japan and were married in 1971.For the past 15 years, Naoko has sold her creations at the Lilac Mall during the holiday season, and will be there this year from Nov. 8 to Dec. 24. This year her table will include examples of mosaiku.

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